Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

Post by serix » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 11:58 AM UTC

singularity2001 wrote: post #67

yrgulation wrote: post #4

I would vouch they need money to pay for hosting and everything else, and as a free service perhaps ads are the only way. Not sure how one can expect youtube to host that amount of content for free perpetually. I dislike ads, particularly dark patterns, and shocking I pay for youtube premium. An unpopular opinion but can someone please explain how can all this be hosted for free? Or why do some believe they should?

I'd honestly pay for their premium 13$ per month if it wasn't Google: Doing so would allow them to cross reference all their tracking to my personal details, or at least to a fixed id.

Post by tubularhells » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

lambda_obrien wrote: post #55

kleer001 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TANSTAAFL

No, literally youtube had ads which just said things like, "does your kid hate it when youtube has commercials? Does it annoy you when they scream because of that? Pay us to remove them!" It works be one thing to advertise a service or product, but they just put ads in to literally annoy you into paying. I'm not kidding. I WAS a YouTube premium member until recently, but dropped it because of crap like this. I know t…

Post by tubularhells » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

bin_bash wrote: post #30

dangwu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people watch YouTube using their smart TVs.

or their phones

Post by tubularhells » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

vptr wrote: post #10

joelwilliamson wrote: post #7

Just use an adblocker. The only time I see see ads on YouTube are when I'm using someone else's browser.

I have ad blocker. I block all ads at the DNS level. I don't think you can block some of the ads on YT. Is that possible with browser plugins?

Post by londons_explore » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

brbsix wrote: post #54

londons_explore wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate/hacked YouTube apps exist that you can install on your TV that won't show ads... Also, if you cast stuff to the TV, you only need a modded version of YouTube on your phone - you don't need to make any changes to the TV.

YouTube Vanced[1] for Android is awesome. It supports background playback and allows you to block all ads as well as community posts, surveys, premium movies, and just about anything else. They recently integrated SponsorBlock[2], which allows you to block in-video intros, outros, sponsored sections, and subscription reminders. However it uses microG, which has long had an open issue with v2 of Google's Cast API. The…